We rarely if ever stop to appreciate the role predictability plays in our lives.
To cite one simple example consider automobile traffic. Try to imagine the number of predictable behaviors that are involved in a simple drive to the grocery store, let alone a cross-country trip.
I have always considered it remarkable how few automobile accidents there are when one considers the number of miles logged each and every year.
It has been said that it's not who gets to vote that matters but who gets to count the votes.
Likewise, it is not who gets to craft the laws or even the laws themselves that matter but who gets to interpret them.
That is certainly evident today as we are witnessing judicial activism on a grand scale.
I suppose everyone appreciates the importance of consistency. However, there is more than one variety of consistency. The one admonishes us to be true and consistent with regard to principle, while the other cautions us to change course when new evidence suggests we should.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen, philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the...
Abstractions are what enable us to think more economically. They reduce innumerable things into one simple term.
We are abstracting when we consider some category of existents and consider only the elements common to all members of the category eliminating from our consideration all measurements.
For example the term table is an abstraction.
Included in the abstraction 'table' are the elements all tables have in common.
They are: A flat surface and some means of support.
The measurements left out...
The concept of the social sciences came into being in the 17th century.
The term is misleading since there really can be no such thing. That is not to say that we cannot study social arrangements or societies. It is to say that such studies do not qualify as science. They are actually closer to history or anthropology.
When once we have convinced ourselves that studying social arrangements and societies can be treated as scientific investigation, then it is a very small leap to concluding that...
Jesus is purported to have advised his listeners: 'Judge not lest you yourself be judged.'
For as long as I can remember I have found this admonition to be unsatisfactory.
I find the advice of Ayn Rand far more compelling. 'Judge and prepare to be judged.'
When one group or another is found engaging in some type of inappropriate behavior, one of their initial responses to save face will be be to claim that their opponents engage in precisely the same type of behavior. They are attempting to prove equivalence.
This is what the term 'Whataboutism' is calling attention to.
In our current political environment one side of the spectrum is asymmetrically far more responsible for violent rhetoric and violence itself.
Cultures have always clashed and evolved.
However, I think we are in a period of cultural upheaval which is unprecedented by most measures.
I don't believe there has ever been a period in human history where such a massive assault was waged against a civilization and its culture. The assault I am referring to is that against western civilization and the culture it represents.
Never have so many been induced to hate their own civilizational history and culture. A sort of self-loathing has spread...
The terms left wing and right wing originated in the French National Assembly in 1789.
On the right side of the chamber sat the Conservatives who supported the monarchy, the established church, and the existing hierarchy.
On the left side of the assembly sat the Radicals who were in favor of a revolution and serious reforms.
When the terms leapt across the pond to America the right wing was the Conservatives and Republicans.
The left wing was the Liberals and Democrats.
I don't believe these...
When one takes an account of all the successful developments in social systems, they realize that not a one of them was planned or designed by any person or group of persons. Instead, they came to exist spontaneously without guide or guidance. It was simply the result of millions of people acting independently of one another, in their own self-interest and without understanding the implications of their actions.
I am thinking of such developments as language, markets, money, and law.
On the...
“It is no excuse for presumptuous ignorance that it is directed by insolent passion.”
Edmund Burke
Unfortunately people often confuse zeal with insight. It is both fascinating and disturbing to observe how frequently ignorance and passion are to be found in the same person.
Apathy regarding one's society may not be a criminal offense but it certainly is not something to laud or be proud of either.
A long time ago I had a custom license plate which read 'I CARE'. When I went to the DMV to pick it up, the young woman there asked me what it meant. I asked her, have you ever heard someone say 'Who cares?'. Sure she said. Well, I care I told her.
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
Edmund Burke
Humans think in words. Consequently, when language becomes corrupted so does our thinking ability.
The corruption of language takes man forms. One I wrote about previously, that of 'concept creep'. Another is when words are commandeered to represent something other than their original meaning.
Liberalism is one such word. Classical liberalism was more akin to the libertarianism of today.
It has been said that success is the result of experience and experience is the result of failure.
I believe that we only learn from our mistakes when we understand why they were mistakes.
As the wonderful economist and social commentator Thomas Sowell is fond of pointing out, solutions are always a trade off of one sort or another.
You can have A and B or B and C, but you cannot have A, B and C.
Knowledge is knowing how the world and the things in it work. Wisdom is knowing what to do with that knowledge.
If a person has embraced the belief that the ends always justify the means, then there is little which that person would not do to promote ends they consider worthy.
Such people cannot be trusted.
I remember when the comedian hosts of the late night shows were actually funny. Think Johnny Carson, Jay Leno and David Letterman.
They are no longer funny and their entire reason for existing seems to be to attack their political opponents.
The intelligent and observant audiences have by and large abandoned them rendering them meaningless and reducing their ratings to microscopic levels.
There was a time not that awfully long ago when newscasts were just that, a reporting of the facts.
Nowadays however, newscasts are simply advocacy journalism.
They exist to promote a preferred narrative and manipulate the facts in order to do so.
They have lost there usefulness except as a means of preaching to the choir. Everyone else simply ignores them.
While sincerity most certainly is important in our personal relationships, it is not so in society at large. The health of a society is less determined by the sincerity of its members and more determined by the effects of their choices and behavior.